Professional Reading Shelf
Information Overload
Source: USA TodayReady access to info means smarts or stress?
"'Social networks, search engines and things [not?] yet invented are critical as we bring millions of movies, books, and musical recordings online,' said Brewster Kahle, a search pioneer who created the Internet Archive, a non-profit preservation group. Even more important will be good research skills -- infoliteracy, if you will. That means knowing where and how to look, and evaluating what you get back. And that's crucial as people get inundated with electronic information 24/7 -- not just at their computers. Cellphones are being transformed into search and browsing tools, and iPods are becoming small television displays."
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Public Domain Works
Source: Associated Press (via Baltimore Sun)He revives books others have forgotten
"Steve Hines spends hours camped out at the Nashville Public Library, looking for obscure works by famous authors. He's motivated by more than just a love of literature. Hines is hoping to find and publish stories by writers such as Louisa May Alcott and Laura Ingalls Wilder -- not the famous novels like Little Women or Little House on the Prairie but lesser-known works that might still appeal to the authors' die-hard fans. The copyright for most books and stories published in the United States before 1978 expires after 75 years, putting it in the public domain. That means anyone can republish the stories for profit."
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English Language Library--Russia
Source: The Daily Times (Maryville, TN)Project supplies English library to Russian town
"This is a good Christmas story. It revolves around humanity, charity, kindness, and compassion. It's about how a city of Alcoa employee named Steve Hillis inspired and led 144 people to organize and deliver a 10,000-volume English library to a struggling Russian town that was once a center of chemical weapons production."